Design thinking tips from the masters

As Mark noted in his post introducing me, I’m winding down a stint as executive editor of MIT Sloan Management Review. One of my greatest pleasures during that assignment was developing a special report on design thinking. Most of what gets published about design thinking focuses on getting analytical types to think more creatively. Usually there are a bunch of examples from Apple and IDEO, leaving CEOs and CFOs more confident about arguing over which shade of mauve to use as the background on a web page. Instead of taking that approach, we wanted to deliver some more practical and global lessons. Thanks to my fellow editor Sean Brown, two of my favorite elements of that special report, usually locked behind a paywall, are now available to all.

In How to Become a Better Manager … By Thinking Like a Designer, I talk to two of the smartest people on the planet when it comes to presentations, Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds, and we talk about how to influence and persuade in different ways than executive usually do, regardless of whether you ever have to communicate via PowerPoint.

In How Facts Change Everything (If You Let Them), I sit at the feet of the information design giant Edward R. Tufte. He explains how businesses would think better, make better decisions, and present themselves more powerfully if only they would learn to talk — both internally and externally — in facts. (Late-breaking Tufte news: he has just been appointed to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. In other words, someone whose whole career has been about promoting accountability and transparency will now be able to do so in the context of public service. We’re lucky to have him.)

I hope you enjoy these newly freed articles. And I hope you learn something from listening to Duarte, Reynolds, and Tufte. I know I did.